All posts tagged: challenge

Dreadtober 2017 Banner

Dreadtober 2017 Announcement

Published by Joe B

Yeah, finally some Dreadtober news for 2017! TL;DR: it is happening, but Todd is hosting it this year! So get ready for Dreadtober 2017! As this is the third annual Dreadtober event, many of you have either participated or at least witnessed the challenge before. Last year I hosted almost 100 hobbyists around the world to build, paint, and photograph a dreadnought type miniature. Over 50 finished their projects and tons more cheered them on. Where to Get Involved for 2017 This year Todd (SincaiN40K) is in charge of the event and decided to create a whole new website over on Blogspot to run it. Heading over to dreadtober.blogspot.com is where you can find out how to get involved and check out the latest updates. He has even set up an email address for the project to make it easier to keep track of going forward. So if you are excited to get a dreadnought-ish miniature built in October, sign up! As for me, I am transitioning jobs at the moment and starting a role and …

Final Thoughts on the Inner Circle

Final Thoughts on the Inner Circle

Published by Ben Dake

Greetings readers! I am back for my final installment of the series I have been writing on GW’s Inner Circle event. I started down this road what feels like a lifetime ago, with grand schemes of what I hoped to accomplish. I didn’t win my local event, and I only scored 330 points. But I learned several lessons that I can pass along that will help you win your next painting contest. I know I’ll be using some of these! Lesson 1: Paint to the Rubric All painting contests should have a rubric to let you know what you are going to get scored on and how many points each item was worth. If they don’t, they really need to have one. Once you get your hands on the rubric, really see where you can maximize your point output. The Inner Circle event, for example, awarded extra points for units that had 10 or more models in them or more than 3 models for larger models. I had exactly zero points in this category. While …

Learning from a paint & Sip

Learning from a Paint and Sip

Published by Joe B

Recently I went to a paint and sip with my wife and found it amazing that twelve people, mostly with no painting skills, all managed to paint a great picture. It got me thinking about how we could apply some of the techniques to our own painting and tutorials. If you haven’t done one of these events, you show up to a room of empty canvases and a cool looking painting hanging at the front of the room. Each person takes a seat with a plate will the primary colors, white, and black paint, a couple of large brushes, and a cup of water. Over the next hour or two, the whole group is walked through each step and brush stroke to complete that same beautiful painting at the front of the room. This was the second of these type of events that I have done and I reflected on the remarkableness of it. I wanted to take away how the instructor was able to get so many people to accomplish works of art. I …

Continuing Work on the Inner Circle

Inner Circle Article Two: Electric Boogaloo

Published by Ben Dake

Hey there hobbymaniacs! Ben from Moosehead Studios checking in again to let everyone know the ups and downs and progress that I’ve made towards my goal of having 18 fully-painted units for the North American Games Workshop Inner Circle hobby event. But first, I have got to catch my breath. The time between my initial article and now has been quite the rush. Professionally, my school has gone through standardized testing (which is great for late-night hobbying), and I’ve also started spring training for my football time (not so great for late-night hobbying). All-in-all, it’s been a positive experience so far, so let’s get some of the lower points out of the way. Hobby Lows Life, in general, has been much more hectic and crowded, as it always does at the end of the school year.  With work, my child’s activities, my family responsibilities, and maintaining a commission painting service, I sometimes don’t know which way is up, and my head feels like it is spinning. I don’t think I’m unique in that, though. Anybody …

Preparing for the Inner Circle Hobby Challenge with Ben Dake

Preparing for the Inner Circle

Published by Ben Dake

Hey, guys and gals! Ben here again from Moosehead Studios. In this series of articles, I won’t be offering advice on how to paint, but instead, I will be documenting my journey of preparation for an event, specifically a hobby-centered event. When I got back into the hobby four years ago, I openly said that I only painted for myself, and would never paint for competitive purposes. File that, along with airbrushing and commission painting, under “Times I’ve Had to Eat My Words.” The Holdups The problem for me, up until this year, has been the fact that most of your big painting contests were held at competitive tournaments. Which, as much as I would love to compete in them, I have never been able to because I have an extremely limited hobby budget. I could never afford what I thought I needed for a competitive list. I played mostly with models that I have had on hand for nearly a decade and re-painted, or the few models I could acquire throughout the year as …

Good Reads 47

Good Reads 47

Published by Joe B

Need a dose of awesome hobby reading? Then get ready for my picks for Good Reads 47 and be prepared to spend a few hours enjoying some excellent content. Painting Black A few weeks back I wrote an article on painting black using some quick and dirty methods. For those looking for a more advanced discussion on the topic, check out David Powell’s post on painting shiny black. Squaduary Finished While my Squaduary pledge was a failure, plenty of other hobbyists fished their squads in this final showcase. With at least 40 participants and 205 finished models, I think Rory created a fantastic new event. I can’t wait until next year (I really will complete something I promise!) Monster March If you haven’t seen it already and enjoyed Squaduary or Dreadtober, Swordmaster is hosting Monster March! As the name implies, this event is all about completing a Monster this month. So far it looks like 19 people have started, so grab your nearest monster-on-the-sprue and join in! Titan Maniple There are times I wish that I had …

Conversion Points - an Outdated System by Rob

Conversion Points in Painting Scores: Why They Should Pass Into History

Published by Rob @ iToysoldiers

Good morning, class.  In today’s “History of Miniature Wargaming” lesson we’re going to talk about a concept called, “Conversion Points” and how they factored into painting scores, why this approach was introduced, and how some forward thinking event organizers led the charge to make the conversion points a thing of the past. Much like the fossil fuels used in the 20th and 21st centuries, conversion points were added into painting scores for a number of really great reasons but as miniature model technology improved the need for them to be present was eventually phased out. To extend the metaphor, Zero Point technology made oil based industry obsolete.  And like ZPT and the Oil Wars, conversion points led to massive conflicts before their use was deemed obsolete.  For the next eight hours (Solar Standard) we’ll be discussing this topic and the impact it had on the history of competitive play in relation to miniature wargaming… I jest, of course. There probably won’t be a war. But this blog post really is about how conversion points in …

Dreadtober Recap and Thoughts on the Event

Dreadtober, a review and thoughts on running the event

Published by Joe B

Well Dreadtober 2016 has come and gone, but I want to take a moment and look back at what happened during the event and my thoughts from running it.   As some of my readers have gathered from my lack of posts the last two weeks, Dreadtober wore me out both on the hobby front as well as the blogging. While I have no regrets doing it, I needed some time to step away and paint a few models for fun. What Happened For those who missed it, or didn’t follow the full journey, Dreadtober was a challenge to build and paint a Dreadnought-like model during October. Greg started it last year and I ran this year’s event. I ran it a bit different this year by breaking it down into six weekly challenges and using email to communicate with the participants. Starting at the end of September, I challenged each member to plan out their project and state their commitment. It then continued into building, painting, finishing, and photographing the miniature. The results of …

Dreadtober 2016 Completed Showcase

Dreadtober 2016 Showcase

Published by Joe B

Dreadtober 2016 is completed! I want to thank everyone who participated and those who cheered everyone on. It’s been a great adventure and some AWESOME models have been completed. I’ve been honored to have had the opportunity to host it this year and it’s been incredible to see what everyone has done. So many of your tried new things or pushed yourself to improve something in your hobby. So even overcame school, work, and illnesses to get things done. So congrats to everybody. Gothmog – COMPLETED! This Red Hunter’s Mortis Dread was achieved simply with successively brighter silver undercoats and then washes of blood letter glaze for the red and seraphim sepia for the gold, with some Nuln oil in all the recesses and exposed silver parts. This method can achieve these results in a single night and is a great way to get a Tabletop/tournament quality army ready to go. Blog: sepulchreofheroes.blogspot.com Albie – COMPLETED! Dreadtober was a fun challenge. As dreads are pretty easy builds it was cool to see what custom work …

Photograph Your Mini Challenge

Dreadtober Challenge: Photograph Your Mini

Published by Joe B

While October has come and gone, and hopefully everyone completed their Dreadtober models, we still have one challenge left: photograph your model. This may seem a bit redundant as each of us has been taking pictures along the way and posting them in the showcase articles. But I felt it was important to take a week just to improve our skills of photographing miniatures, editing the picture, and loading it to your site of choice. Challenge: Photograph Your Model So this week your challenge is this: read/watch some tutorials on photographing your miniatures (some helpful links below), build a simple light box if needed, and take the best picture of your model possible. As you will see in some of the tutorials, you don’t need a fancy camera or photo booth. A white sheet of paper and your cell phone can take some amazing pictures – if you take the time to do it right. So this week, take that time and up your photography game. Result: A Beautifully Photographed Model After four weeks of …

Finish the Model Challenge

Dreadtober Challenge: Paint the Details

Published by Joe B

Let’s finish this! This is it my friends, the final week to paint your models for Dreadtober. Welcome to Challenge #5: Finish Your Model. We are now in the last week of October with the deadline of Saturday, October 29th and the very much, hard stop, never go past it (just kidding) deadline. Up to this point, each of you has been challenged to plan, build, start painting and finish the base. Now it’s time to finish it. Challenge: Finish Your Model This week’s challenge is relatively straightforward: finish painting your dreadnought. Perhaps you need to add weathering, decals, and final highlights. Maybe you need to catch up. Some of you might even be starting just now. Whatever needs to be finished, your challenge is to finish it this week. Result: Your Completed Dreadtober Modeled By Saturday I will be posting the Finished Model Showcase where I hope each of your will have completed your Dreadtober Pledge. We can all rejoice in completing this epic journey together and enjoy the fruits of our tears. If …

Dreadtober Challenge: Build and Paint the Base

Published by Joe B

On to Dreadtober Challenge #4: Painting the Base! At this point, our participants have created a plan, built their dreadnought (or similar) and painted the primary colors. Now it’s time to give it a frame. As a continued reminder, these challenges are only meant as milestones. If you keep your bases simple or super complex, do Dreadtober your own way. As long as you are making progress and having fun, then it’s a success! Challenge: Build and Paint Your Base With the Build your Dreadnought and Paint Your Dreadnought (base colors) challenges, I recommend skipping the base as we would come back to it. Well, here we are! Now it’s time to build up an impressive base for your dreadnought to stand heroic. Then get the paint applied! While I typically wait to paint the base last, I purposely moved this challenge before the Paint the Details. This way, if you get base colors on your dread’s feet or want to add consistent weathering between the base and the model, it will much easier to …